28
July 2012
The blackcurrant: best berry for life
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Blackcurrants are known as the “king of the berries” and within the blackcurrant world itself, New Zealand’s Jim Grierson is very well known too
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After helping to establish a global organisation, known as the International Blackcurrant Association (IBA) regarded as unique in the world of berries, Jim stood down as its founding president this year to continue to develop the agronomy sector of the IBA. In
2006
Jim
attended
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a European blackcurrant conference in Germany. He was representing the small but highly respected NZ blackcurrant industry. He saw a global industry at a crossroads and a fruit that deserved better respect and investment than it was able to produce as individual countries. The answer seemed to be for growers of the world to simply talk to each other therefore creating a platform where they could discuss both their highs and lows. “Be it poles, danes,
kiwis, french, dutch and the other nations that produce commercial blackcurrants, they all had similar issues and aspirations,” says Grierson. And the potential world demand for blackcurrant’s organoleptic and bio-functional values was bigger than any one country could supply, so we didn’t need to covet each other’s strengths but gain synergy from bringing those strengths together. We needed to talk up the positives and look forward instead of tripping ourselves
up in a tangle of negativity and disorganisation. As a result, the New Zealand industry hosted the first international blackcurrant conference in Christchurch. It was hugely successful with 163 delegates attending from 16 countries. “The attitude was quite humbling,” says Grierson. A wonderful response from people who wanted to work together, both in the paddock and in the market place. After the success of Christchurch I headed a